You've Got A Piece of Me
by smc-27
Summary: NS Pre-pilot. They've gotten better and better at resisting temptation. Or at the very least, they try. Oneshot.


**A/N: **Pre-pilot, basically a series of drabbles. Nate and Serena have gotten better and better at resisting temptation. Or at least they try.

**----**

He kisses her once, when he and Blair have a huge fight and he ends up in Serena's bedroom. He knows he shouldn't be there, that when they fight, he gets Chuck and Blair gets Serena, but he's sick of that too. Sick of talk of the future and Yale and movies and stupid things that lead him to believe that his own girlfriend doesn't know who he is at all.

But he gets Chuck and Blair gets Serena. He's not too stupid to notice that really, it's the other way around. He and Serena understand one another, and they don't bother to hide it. Chuck and Blair understand one another, but they pretend they don't, argue and fight and trade barbs until one of them thinks they've won.

He doesn't want Chuck right now. Scotch and a joint isn't going to help him forget that Blair kicked him out of her room when he made a comment about how stupid it was to stay in all the time, how candles and _Tiffany's_ wasn't exactly his ideal date (especially not for the _thousandth__ time_).

So he goes to Serena's before Blair can, because they're all friends, and she can bitch to Chuck if she wants to (he laughs even as he thinks it, because that scenario would last all of about two seconds before Chuck wouldn't hear of it anymore). And Serena always seems to kind of take his side anyway, at least when they're face to face. He just needs to vent to someone.

Or to forget about the whole thing all together. She's always pretty good at that too.

He walks into her room without knocking (Lily merely smiled when he walked into the apartment), and he sees her, laying there in a blue pair of cotton pajama shorts with a cute little frill at the openings of the legs, and a white tank top with lace at the top. She's on her bed, on her stomach, studying with her Latin book open in front of her.

Okay, so maybe he needs _this_ too.

"Hey," she says. Her brow is furrowed as he walks in and peels off his sweater, throwing it onto the chair in the corner. "I thought you and Blair were..."

"We're not," he cuts her off. She doesn't say anything, just waits for him to tell her what's wrong. He sighs and rolls his eyes, flopping onto his back so his head is right next to her books. "We had a fight." She toys with her pen and rolls onto her side, because she's not sure what to say. "I'm just so..._bored_."

"Well, there's nothing exciting going on here," she laughs.

He smiles, because her laugh is _adorable_. "No, I mean...I mean in general. Like, don't you...aren't you _sick_ of all this?"

"Well, sometimes, but..." She bites her lip as she pauses, and he looks over at her as he waits for her to continue. "I mean, I...my life is a little more..."

"Exciting."

"No, no. It's not that," she insists. "I just...you and Blair are _you and Blair_. And Chuck and I...we do our own thing."

He doesn't know if she realizes it, but she sounds a little bitter. And he's not going to hide the fact that he likes it.

"Yeah," he says. "But I don't like it that way."

"Me neither," she says quietly.

He takes the pen from her hand and pushes her books away. "I miss...I dunno. I miss the way it used to be. Before." She just nods, and he moves a little closer, so he's pressed right up against her body, and her hand falls to his stomach because he really hasn't given her anywhere else to put it. He covers it with his own. "I miss _this_."

She bites her lip again, but he doesn't see it, because he's too busy noticing the way her hand, chipped bright yellow nail polish and the freckle on her thumb near her knuckle, look with his. It's stupid, and he shouldn't even be holding her hand at all. He should be trying to reconcile with Blair, or at least be worried about her walking into the room, which could very well happen.

He should be thinking about all that. All he's thinking about is Serena.

"I miss _you_," he finally says.

She tilts her head, because he shouldn't be saying things like that, and they both know it, but before she can say anything, he lifts his head, presses his lips to hers and pulls her down towards him. She kisses him back, just for a second, and then they're both pulling away, and she's rolling onto her back.

They don't talk about it (never, ever do they talk about it, this, them). He quizzes her in Latin, and she laughs and insists they need popcorn, which inevitably ends up being tossed between them, and they spend the rest of their evening laughing, sitting on her bed cross-legged, knees pressed together and books in their laps.

They don't talk about it, because they're both afraid there's just too much to talk about.

He and Blair make up the next day before school, and when she kisses him, he pretends that he can't remember that Serena's lips tasted like strawberries and chocolate milk.

----

They fall asleep together once, when she actually cuts short a night of partying. She's still drunk, and she still doesn't want to be alone (it's a whole thing with her, and people have annoyingly been trying to psycho-analyze that lately). It's midnight when she calls his cell and tells him she's outside his place and does he want to hang out?

He's half asleep, wearing a wrinkled tee shirt and plaid pants that don't necessarily match, but of course he's going to let her in. They both know by now that he's pretty much up for anything she suggests. And anyway, being woken up by her voice isn't the worst thing he's ever experienced.

He opens the door with his index finger already held up to his lips, because he knows drunk Serena isn't ever really quiet. She giggles, but shushes herself, and hugs him hard enough that he has to steady himself with one hand on the doorknob. He whispers that they should go upstairs before she wakes up his parents, and she leads the way, which he should have known would be dangerous.

Her little black skirt and mostly-open-back shirt aren't leaving anything to the imagination. He sees so much leg and so much skin that he has to clear his throat to keep himself from thinking about her too much. (But oh, my god, girls should not be allowed to be made of that much _perfect_.)

She steps into his bathroom as soon as they're in his room, and she comes out wearing just one of his tee shirts. She curls up beneath the covers on the side of the bed he usually sleeps on, and he switches off the light and crawls in next to her. She falls against him, the two of them together in the middle of the bed, and she buries her face against the skin of his neck. He's thankful she's in no frame of mind to make note of how his pulse races.

"You okay?" he asks, hoping she'll understand what he's really asking (_why are you here, should I be worried, and how drunk are you anyway?_)

She makes this little purring sound and throws one leg over his. He's not sure that's a yes, but he's not sure it's a no either.

He can feel her breathing slow down, and he knows she's asleep, and he's so comfortable that he can't help but close his eyes. His last thought before he falls asleep is that he's never felt so comfortable with anyone in his life.

She's still there in the morning when he wakes up, and he's surprised to see her looking at him across the pillow. All she does is murmur a quick thank you, kiss his cheek, and get up to leave.

He knows that when he sees her at school, they'll act like nothing happened.

But then again, they've gotten pretty good at that.

----

They spend a week together once, when it's March break and Blair's family goes to their house in Maine, and Chuck goes to Thailand.

It's just the two of them in the city, and the first day, she wakes him up by practically bouncing on his bed, handing him an iced coffee (though it's not even near warm enough for it) and telling him she has a whole day planned for them and would he kindly get his ass out of bed so they can get started?

It's a _Saturday_. It's _8:00_. It's _the_ _first_ _day_ of their break. He really wants to be sleeping. But she's wearing a pair of faded jeans, flip flops, and a blue wrap sweater thing, and her hair is down the way he likes it, and...Well, she's Serena, so of course he takes a sip of the coffee she brought before mumbling something about the hour and the day, and she rolls her eyes and tells him to get ready. He throws back the covers and she swats at his backside as he gets up, which makes him scowl (but he's still smiling) and her giggle, then look all cute and innocent as she takes a sip of her coffee, as if to ask, _'who, me?'_

She dubs that first day a regression. Aside from the coffee, they do all the things they used to do as kids. They go to the zoo, and they get ice cream cones, and they eat lunch at McDonald's (Happy Meals, and she insists, even though he'll have to eat again in an hour). They walk through the park and she takes pictures with her phone.

The next day, he wakes her up the same way she did the morning before, and he flashes two tickets to a hockey game, and so they head to Madison Square Garden and he tries to explain the rules to her, but she just yells random things and of course, charms everyone around them because she's beautiful and sweet and funny. The men all look at Nate with a certain amount of jealousy, no matter what their age, but it's not possessive when he puts his arm around her, it's just more comfortable to sit that way. And besides, she rests her head on his shoulder, so it's kind of worth the little glares he gets.

They have a day of laying in bed (hers, since her house is empty), and they have a day of shopping, and they have a day of pretending they're older than they really are.

He doesn't really care what they do. They hold hands and kiss (just not on the lips) and he pretends to be busy when Blair calls, and Serena does the same. They know they're probably totally giving themselves away, but they're the two left in the city, and it's to be assumed that they'd spend their time together.

They're laying on the rooftop of her building, where there's a little garden and a full view of the sky. Blair comes back tomorrow, and Chuck later in the evening. Their days of being alone are coming to an end, and uncharacteristic of them both, they're quiet, calm and almost reflective. They've got a bottle of champagne, but no glasses, so it sits between them, each of them reaching for it intermittently to take sips.

"What?" he asks after she heaves a sigh.

"This has been the best week," she says, even though it's too close to something like admitting feelings. Maybe it's the champagne, or maybe it's the years of holding it in, but she doesn't _care_ anymore.

"Yeah."

Neither says anything else, but when she reaches for the bottle of champagne, he takes it before she can. He pulls it away sharply, breaking the tension and starting a playful little fight that has her squealing and him trying to keep the bottle just out of her grasp. She playfully bites at his arm, and squeals when he pours a little of the liquid onto her calf.

She pushes at him as she reaches for the bottle he's holding in the air, and he grabs the arm she has supporting her. She falls onto him, her chest pressing against his and forcing him onto his back. Their lips are just inches apart, and they're both breathing heavily, and she's blinking slowly, like he's seen her do before when she's flirting but doesn't realize it.

It's she who realizes what's definitely about to happen. "Nate," she breathes out.

She pushes herself into a sitting position again, and he's still on his back. This time, when she reaches for the bottle, he doesn't stop her. The weight of what just almost happened (he wonders if _almost_ is just as bad anyway) lingers.

When she speaks again, he thinks it's going to be something completely off-topic, something to break the tension.

"You ever wonder what things would be like if they were different?" she asks, and there's no questioning what she's talking about.

He's still on his back, and his heart is still racing from having her pressed against him. He's been thinking the same thing for two full minutes. A full week. A year. All his life.

"All the time," he says quietly.

They finish the bottle of champagne and Nate says goodbye at the door, and the next day, they meet Blair at her apartment.

Nothing happened. That's what they tell everyone who asks.

----

He tells her he loves her one night in the summer, when they're all together at a party, and he and Blair are trying to make Serena stay with them in the Hamptons instead of going back to the city to party with Chuck and Georgina.

He's not stupid. He knows it can't be easy for her to be the third wheel, especially with he and Blair. But he feels like he's barely seen her at all this summer, and he wants to spend a little more time with her. Besides, there's a garden party that he knows Blair will be making the rounds at, and he needs (okay, just _wants_) someone to stand with in the corner and take advantage of the open bar.

But Blair has gotten mean in her tactics to get Serena to stay, and so the blonde stomps into the kitchen and reaches for a carton of ice cream. When she hears footsteps behind her, she whirls around, thinking it's Blair. But there's Nate, standing there with one hand in his pocket and an amused look on his face.

"You have ice cream on your lip," he tells her.

"I don't care," she states petulantly. He laughs a little when she uses her tongue to lick the chocolate off her lip. "I don't know why you guys care so much. I just..."

"C'mon. It'll be fun." She tilts her head at him and furrows her brow, because that's just about the least convincing argument he could have given her. "I want you to come."

She closes her eyes. He knows those are the magic words. "I don't want to. I hate you."

She smiles a little bit, though, because it's a huge lie and she's being seriously childish, and he steps towards her, pulling her into his arms in a big, friendly hug. "Well too bad, 'cause I love you."

She doesn't say anything, just nods. She knows. She doesn't say it back, because Blair walks into the room and she can tell Nate has persuaded Serena to stay. They all hug, all three of them, and Serena spoons enough ice cream in her mouth to give her brain freeze when Blair kisses Nate right in front of her.

----

She's spinning atop an empty bar, getting a little revenge on his game of keep away from months ago. They're both drunk, and Blair is somewhere in the building. Nate is handsy and Serena doesn't care if he can see up her dress. When he grabs her and pulls her into his lap after they both get covered in champagne, he thinks she's never felt better to him than she does right now. Her hands are on his face and his are on her thighs, and when they kiss, they don't even have a chance to think that they shouldn't be kissing.

It's a full year of all that work resisting temptation being thrown out the window.

But really, they never did try too hard to resist it anyway.

_**-Fin-**_


End file.
